1989 was a great year for movies. Batman. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Ghostbusters 2. License to Kill. Lethal Weapon 2. So, it's no surprise that when a small-ish budget comedy from a novelty music star came out, it didn't earn much notice. 'UHF' didn't even come to my local theatre. I called every week, just to make sure. Finally, at the end of summer, the Palace Theatre in dowtown Lorain, as part of it's summer movie series, played it for a dollar. Having no interest in seeing it herself, my mom dropped me off, and that's the first movie I ever saw by myself. Since that summer, though, UHF has garnered a cult following of 'Weird Al' fans and other movie lovers. For a while, it was nearly impossible to find on home video, though I found a VHS copy in the local discount store in Germantown, Ohio. It has since been released on DVD. Al fans wait with bated breath for the day when a super-remastered, 3D Blu Ray version with 8 commentaries and a whole movie's worth of deleted scenes becomes available.
'UHF' is a bit uneven for me. As an Al fan, I want to love this movie, but as a movie fan, I also see its flaws. Al isn't much of an actor. He pretty much plays the "Weird Al" persona in every scene. However, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments in the film, and it's easy to see why it's still appreciated by Al fans worldwide.
Spoilers ahead. If you've never watched UHF....ah, forget it. You don't really watch this movie for the plot, and it's predictable, anyway. George Newman (Al), recently fired from Big Edna's Burger World, is hired by his Uncle Harvey to run the UHF station he won in a card game. Al and friends (including Michael Richards of 'Seinfeld' fame and Fran Drescher of 'I can hurt your brain with my voice' fame) end up putting together a wacky slate of ratings-winning programs, earning the ire of the local network affiliate's station manager. When Uncle Harvey needs some quick cash to pay off gambling debts, he considers selling the station, but is convinced by Al to give him a chance to buy the station himself. Al hosts a telethon to raise the money by selling shares of the station. And, of course, they succeed, despite the obligatory hiccups along the way.
Much of the humor in UHF is from the unusual programs that Al and company come up with. At 'Stanley Spudowski's Clubhouse,' the reward for finding the marble in the oatmeal is a drink from the fire hose. The star of 'Raul's Wild Kingdom' teaches poodles to fly. And on 'Wheel of Fish,' contestants are berated by the host when they guess wrong. There are also a couple of parody dream sequences in the film inspired by Indiana Jones and Rambo. And at one point, Al falls asleep, and we get his dream of a parodied Dire Straits song. I guess incorporating the music video budget into the movie budget was a more frugal way to go, but it's 3 minutes that, if excised from the film, don't change things a bit.
There's also a subplot of Al losing his girlfriend (Saturday Night Live's Victoria Jackson) and attempting to win her back (he does), but she's so annoying, maybe he should have just moved on.
When the shows and spoofs aren't on the screen, the humor is a lot more forced as the plot is forced to move along- although one of the best laughs comes during a scene where Al is trying to rescue Stanley from his kidnappers at the network, only to be saved my the local karate school students. I won't spoil the surprise.
I just watched 'UHF' with my 10-year old for the first time today (my 7 year old also came in and out), and the movie made her laugh a lot of times- probably as much as when I was 15.
As for the DVD release, the commentary track is...well, it's 'Weird Al.' He mentions the specific locations (down to the address) where various scenes were shot- someone out there in Internet land even took photos of the places as they look now. The extras include a few deleted scenes, but nothing too impressive. Still, if you're looking to sit back and have a few laughs over an hour and a half, you can't go wrong with UHF.
Tomorrow, we'll look at the original motion picture soundtrack from UHF...and other stuff.
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